The Days After
by MadzieGray
Summary: What if Seth had been selfish and let Kate go to El Ray? How would they adjust to life with one another?...And ever wonder if there was more vampires out there? Alternate ending to the film. Crappy summary I know but I'm trying not to give anything away. Rated M for severe swearing and vulgarities and for possible adultish-themes, and because I don't want to take any chances.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own From Dusk Till Dawn or any of its characters…or George Clooney for that matter.**

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"Kate, do you know where I'm going, do you know what El Ray is?" Seth asked the blood-spattered, auburn haired girl. Why would she give a fuck about whether or not he, the bastard who had dragged her ass into this mess and gotten her family killed, needed "some company?" And what the hell was she thinking, making that kind of offer? Normally, when a women asked if he wanted some company, Seth Gecko didn't have too much of a problem saying "hell yes" and going off to some seedy motel for an hour or two. But Kate probably wasn't even legal yet (he knew for a fact she was under twenty-one; she'd said as much) and believe it or not he had rules; one of which was no god damned under-agers! Besides, how could he live with himself if he took Kate up on her offer and she got hurt in El Ray? And even if she didn't get hurt, did he really want to corrupt a minister's kid?

_Dammit, I may be a bastard, but I'm not a fucking bastard!_ He thought at himself, but somehow that wasn't what he wound up telling Kate. Instead, he had asked, whether or not she knew what El Ray, his new home, was. He looked up as Carlos, the bastard, told him it was time to go. Man, if he hadn't had accepted that reduced fee, Seth would have had to kill him. Richie and Jacob and Scott at least deserved some compensation. Okay, maybe Seth just wanted more dough to work with when he got to El Ray, but why sweat the details?

He looked back at Kate, peeling off his ruined jacket and trying to force the words "go home, Kate," from his mouth. But instead, he flicked his eyes to the RV, and back to her again.

"Do you want anything from the RV?"

She blinked, and smiled with genuine happiness and surprise. The first smile he'd seen from her.

"Nothing that can't be replaced, no." He climbed into the convertible, a smirk stretching his lips.

"Then hurry up and get in," he told her, smirking, instantly regretting the words but too selfish to take them back. Who was he supposed to take care of now, with Richie dead? Who was he supposed to kick around (figuratively, of course; he doubted Kate would need to be kicked for anything she could possibly do) when he felt shitty? Besides, what was Kate, a sweet kid, supposed to do now? Her dad and brother were dead, and the cash he had handed her would only last so long…maybe she would be better tagging along with him? Oh, fuck; he didn't care whether or not it made him a fucking bastard or if he was ruining her life; he actually wanted the kid to come with him, and she had _offered_ for Christ's sake…

He sped out of the parking lot, kicking up a cloud of dust, glancing at the girl sitting beside him as he followed Carlos's car to El Ray. She was too busy watching out the window to notice, so he let his gaze wander for a second before turning back to the road. Young or not; she sure was nice to look at.

**Kate POV**

Kate surreptitiously glanced at Seth as he drove to what Kate suspected was a town much like what the inside of the Titty Twister had been like only minus the vampires and bigger. She didn't care; she didn't have anything besides the bloody clothes on her back, the cash in her hand, a head full of memories, a cheap wallet with a few pictures and her ID, and the man (criminal, if she wanted to be honest) beside her. She had no one in America; with Mama and Daddy and Scott gone, she had no one to go back to. She had come into Mexico a legal adult (in a week, she would be anyway, but why whine about specifics?) and had no reason to not ask Seth if she could come; which is what she had essentially done, by asking if he wanted some company. But, for all her hoping, she had been shocked when he had agreed. After all, why would some badass criminal want anything to do with her, Kate Fuller? She didn't think it was for sex; he hadn't given off that depraved vibe that his brother had; the one that screamed sexual predator. But that look he'd given her when he'd thought she hadn't been paying attention had said volumes. She felt a smile play on her mouth; yes, he was older, but attractive none the less and she was a young female. How could she not be flattered?

What had happened before last night, the threatening, the kidnapping, all of it, didn't seem to matter to her anymore. Seth had fought side by side with her and her family when the going got tough, and she felt that that more than made up for that. And try as she might, she just couldn't blame him for causing Scott and Jacob's deaths. How was he supposed to know that he and Richie weren't the real threat to the Fuller family when they'd walked into the bar? And how was the sleazy little man Seth had done business with supposed to know that vampires were real and ran the strip club he'd picked out of a hat? Truth was, they couldn't have known, and Kate had no energy to be angry with them right now.

_Maybe later._ she thought with a smirk, and leaned back against the seat, closing her eyes as she tilted her head back slightly.

"I'll wake you when we get there." she heard Seth say.

"Okay." she replied, and eventually settled into a light, uneasy sleep as the red sports car sped down the dusty road to some godforsaken, hole-in-the-wall town.

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**This is my first time EVER letting someone besides me and my mother and my sister read my work, and also my first ever fanfic. A review, good or bad, is heavily appreciated as I'm dying for some feedback.**


	2. Chapter 2

Seth Gecko glanced at the sleeping girl next to him, wondering for the millionth fucking time why he had let her come with him. She was just gonna get hurt, by him or someone else, but it was gonna happen. He sighed. Oh well. Nothing for it now.

They had arrived in El Ray a little while earlier, with the "town" being nothing more than liquor stores, strip joints and bars, Mexican convenience stores, and your occasional eatery. Carlos had told him, back when Seth had first contacted him, that El Ray was mostly just a residential hide-away, and that most of its residents spent their time out of town. Apparently there were several larger towns miles from El Ray, but they were on Carlos's payroll so while they did have cops, they mostly looked the other way when the lowlifes strolled in so long as they didn't do anything too fucking stupid.

At the moment Seth was following Carlos to the little house (shack, if Seth was telling it like it was) that was his (and Kate's) new home. He knew that it had four walls, a roof, running water and working electricity, a bathroom, and was pretty isolated from the town. He hadn't asked for much more than that, but now that he had Kate as his roommate instead of his brother, he was really hoping that the house had two damn bedrooms instead of one. Getting used to each other would be hard enough without having to share a bedroom on top of it.

He smiled in relief when a small, dingy looking wooden house appeared among the cactus, looking better than a bottle of jack on a hot fucking day. Carlos's car stopped in front of it, and Carlos half-emerged from it, gestured to the building with a stupid grin, and after getting back in the car, drove away. Seth slowed and pulled off the unpaved, dirt road and to the house. It wasn't terrible looking, but it certainly wasn't going to make the next edition of _Architectural Digest_. He snorted and turned to Kate, reaching out a hand to wake her up.

"Kate," he said softy, gently shaking her shoulder. "Wake up, sugar. We're here." He licked his dry lips and would have probably given his left hand for a bottle of whiskey and some shade at the moment. Fuck was that sun brutal! The glaring light and searing heat it was causing was only worsening the headache pulsing behind his eyes, and making his throat even drier than normal. Once Kate was awake and situated and he got cleaned up, he'd go back into El Ray and buy some food and booze.

Just like how he'd used to do with Richie after they'd finish a job. Seth would find them a hidey-hole, make sure Richie wasn't going to do something stupid (usually just placing him in front of a TV solved that problem) and hope he didn't kill the hostage (if they had grabbed one on the way out), and would get burgers and beer. Although if he was being honest, it was nice not to have to worry about Richie fucking something up anymore, or having to protect him from himself. Because that was what Seth had been doing ever since he'd looked at the squirmy thing his old man and mom had told him was his brother. Taking the heat when poor toddler Richie accidently broke something or did anything that might piss off their mean old bastard of a father, hiding the burnt remains of Richie's little experiments on the neighborhood animals, and for footing the bill for hookers and bribing girls to not go to the cops when Richie got out of hand. Although Seth personally wondered how some women could have been stupid enough to not see his brother for the sick SOB he'd been in life. But, like a good older brother, Seth had done his best to get his brother out of hot water and to keep him out of it.

Hopefully taking care of Kate wouldn't prove to be as hard.

Her hazel eyes opened and closed quickly, probably because the sun was blinding her, and she rubbed at them, not paying the blood on them much mind. "We're there?" she asked, her voice thick with sleep but raspy with thirst, as she tried to focus on him. Seth nodded, and climbed out of the car and went around to the trunk, pulling out his suitcase of cash. It probably wasn't even smart to leave the car outside unsheltered and unwatched, let alone with a suitcase filled with money in the trunk. He watched Kate stiffly climb out of the car, auburn hair dirty and stringy and her clothes filthy, and figured that even then she still made a nice sight for sore eyes. Shaking his head, he walked just a little ahead of her as they made their way to the shack, listening closely for the sound of another person. He was pretty damn sure it was just him and Kate out there, but after the night he'd had, he figured a little caution wouldn't be a bad idea.

He kicked the door in without breaking his stride, having mastered the art of actually doing no damage to the door while doing that, and stopped slightly inside as he surveyed the dump.

Bare wooden walls, faux-wood floors (they looked too well-kept to be real wood), and a few pieces of shit furniture. A slightly misshapen couch, a small round table with two non-matching chairs, and a threadbare rug, was on what he guessed was the living-area half of the space, as the other half had a sink, a few cabinets, a fridge, and a stove. A small hallway directly across from the front door led to a three door intersection; the bathroom and bedrooms, he was guessing.

Not great, but he'd slept in worse shit holes.

But he wasn't the only one who had to live there, was he? He turned to Kate, expecting her to be…unsatisfied, to say the least. She was studying the place with distaste, but she didn't look completely disgusted.

**Kate POV**

_And to think I called the Dew Drop Motel a flop house._ Kate thought, and a small smile curved her full lips.

"Listen, when I agreed to this place, it was just for me and Richie," she heard Seth say, and when she turned to look at him, she saw that he was now, maybe, just a little bit, ashamed of the shack he had been so looking forward to? Kate's smile widened when she realized what he was trying to say, and she nodded.

"It's fine; I've spent the last couple of weeks living out of a small RV with my brother and father; here I at least get a room." she said lightly, but a pang went through her; damn did she miss Scott and Daddy. Hell, her Mama's death hadn't been recent, but she missed her too. She took a breath and blew it out. "It's fine." she said again, not knowing where to go from there.

Seth nodded, dark eyes enigmatic, and moved to set the suitcase on the table. Kate walked over and set the bundles of bills he'd given her earlier beside the suitcase, but Seth reached out and caught her hand.

"Pick a room and keep it in there; I gave you that and I'm not taking it back." he said without looking at her and let her go. She wanted to argue, but she figured Mr. Do-As-I-Say wouldn't appreciate that, and being as she didn't want to push her luck, she conceded.

"You want first shower?" she asked, figuring that this dump at least had running water, and when Seth didn't correct her otherwise, she took that as a yes.

"You go ahead," he told her, even though he was filthier than her by a long ways. She scrunched up her nose slightly; a sure sign she was going to argue.

"You sure? You're the one covered in grime." she pointed out, and very nearly flinched when he looked at her, deadpanned. But a smirk crept onto his face as he stared at her.

"I'll be quick and then I'll get us some food, alright?" Kate wasn't sure how she felt about eating, but she nodded anyway because how could she say no?

Seth stared at her for a second, expression unreadable, and she grew more uncomfortable by the second.

"Seth?" she asked, slightly nervous as she fiddled with one of the belt loops on her jeans. Had he practiced that damn look he was giving her, or was it just one of his natural talents?

"Kate, how old are you?" he asked abruptly, shocking Kate so that she answered without thinking.

"Eighteen in a week." she replied promptly, then frowned in confusion. "Why?" he wasn't going to make a fuss about her age, was he? He hadn't when he'd ushered her into a strip club, or when he'd handed her those two shots, but living with her in a shack was where his morals drew a line? Of all the backward…

"Just curious." Seth said, and without another word or glance marched to the hallway and pulled open each door until she figured he found the bathroom. She heard a door slam close and after a second, heard the sound of a shower running. Inhaling and slowly exhaling, she ran a hand through her hair, which had dried into dirty locks from the hot sun, and pressed her lips together.

Last night had really happened.

Her family had died because of vampires.

Fucking _vampires._

Not psychos, because as Seth had so eloquently put it, psychos did not explode when sunlight hit them, or simultaneously melt and explode when a cross was shoved into their mouths. Psychos didn't have superhuman strength, or morph into disgusting creatures before they ripped out your throat.

She pressed a hand to her mouth, and fought back a scream. If Seth hadn't taken them hostage, if they had just passed up that motel, if they hadn't been going to Mexico in the first damn place…

If her mother hadn't died.

And that was the root of this whole thing; if Jenny Fuller hadn't died in that car wreck, then Jacob Fuller would never have stopped being a minister and would never have decided that a road trip to Mexico would have been a good idea. And if the Fullers had never gone on the trip, they wouldn't have been in a motel, and their paths would have never crossed with that of the Gecko brothers.

But at least she wasn't completely alone.

She had Seth, if that counted as something.

One apathetic, snarky criminal on the lam from the FBI, never able to return to his home country, in replacement for a brother, a father, and what the hell might as well, a mother.

Choking on a sob, she stumbled into the door on the right of the hall, and didn't bother to take in her surroundings, merely went straight to the small cot on the far wall and collapsed onto it, sobbing hysterically as tears she'd been repressing since her father had first been bit flowed freely.

_Well, Seth did tell me I could cry later._ She thought acerbically, and burying her face into the questionably clean bed, she cried her heart out for everything she'd lost in one long, long night.

**Seth POV**

Seth pressed his forehead to the dingy shower wall as he let the warm water flower over him. He was too tired to really scrub at the blood and filth on him, and also, while there were towels on the small sink counter, there was unfortunately no soap or shampoo. So he just stood there, staring blankly at the dirty shower wall and absently hoping a rat the size of a Chihuahua didn't crawl out of the woodwork and eat him.

He'd fought vampires.

There, he admitted it!

Motherfucking, satanic cocksuckers from Hell had killed every damn person in the Titty Twister besides himself and Kate, and the vampires that they hadn't managed to reduce to piles of green goo or charred remains had burned up when the sun reflecting off the disco ball hit them.

"Vampires." he said softly, grinning bitterly. "Well fuck me sideways."

He broke himself out of his little pity-party and started scrubbing at his body and hair with his hands, trying to do his best without soap and cloth. He figured once the water began to run clearly he could call it good, and after shutting off the water he looked at his filthy suit with distaste; he really did not want to put those clothes back on. So he after drying off he securely wrapped a towel around his waist and began to wash out the once-white muscle shirt he had worn under the black vest. It wasn't too dirty, actually, but the small triangular patch of material that had peeked out from under the vest was a dirty grey/black. He managed to get it to an unnoticeable off-white and wrung it out inside a towel until it had no moisture left in it; a little trick he'd learned. He did the same with the vest and slacks, and waited impatiently for them to be just a little bit drier before putting them on. He was leaning his hands on the counter to study his reflection in the cracked mirror, noticing little cuts and bruises and reminding himself to buy Band-Aids and Tylenol along with those burgers and booze. Tomorrow he'd take him and Kate into one of the other towns for clothing; he sure as shit didn't want to have to wear this damn suit for any long than he had to, and he doubted Kate wanted to wear clothes that had once been spattered with vampire guts.

Speaking of Kate, where was she anyway?

Figuring that seeing him in nothing but a towel wouldn't be the worst sight her eyes had seen, he prepared to check on her when he heard something that made him pause; had Kate just cried out?

Wondering if some fuck-face from El Ray had decided to visit the residents in the little shack and had found Kate, Seth tore out of the bathroom like it had just gone up in flames and swiveled his head left and right before figuring out which bedroom Kate, and hopefully no one else, was in.

_I knew it was a dumbass idea to bring her._


End file.
